I thought she was going to faint again, but I didn't care—I wanted to shock her. Her lusciousness meant nothing to me now but a trap that had confused my thoughts. I had not wanted to think her guilty, so I had disregarded the fact that of all the persons involved she was the only one with the necessary opportunity, the knowledge of the swapped shows, and at least some motive. She had made it plain that she detested Estelle. She had covered it up but it was still evident.
But most important of all, the little stage had not been dark! True, it
looked
dark—from the outside. You can't see through glass when all the light comes from one side and you are on that same side—but light passes through the glass just the same. The neon on the street illuminated this room we were in fairly brightly; the brilliant lights of Jack's bar illuminated the little stage even when the stage floodlights were out.
She knew that. She knew it because she had been in there many times, getting ready to pose for the suckers. Therefore she knew that it was not a case of mistaken identity in the dark—there was no dark! And it would have to be nearly pitch black for anyone to mistake Hazel's blue-black mane for Estelle's peroxided mop.
She knew—why hadn't she said so? She was letting me stay all night, not wanting me around but risking her reputation and more, because I had propounded the wrong-girl-in-the-dark theory. She knew it would not hold water; why had she not said so?
"Eddie, have you gone crazy?" Her voice was frightened.
"No—gone sane. I'll tell you how you did it, my beautiful darling. You both were there—you admitted that. Estelle got in her pose, and asked you to punch the buzzer. You did—but first you grabbed the knife and slid it in her ribs. You wiped the handle, looked around, punched the buzzer, and lammed. About ten seconds later you were slipping your arm in mine. Me—your alibi!
"It
had
to be you," I went on, "for no one else would have had the guts to commit murder with nothing but glass between him and an audience. The stage was lighted—from the outside. You knew that, but it didn't worry you. You were used to parading around naked in front of that glass, certain you could not be seen while the house lights were on! No one else would have dared!"
She looked at me as if she could not believe her ears and her chin began to quiver. Then she squatted down on the floor and burst into tears. Real tears—they dripped. It was my cue to go soft, but I did not. I don't like killing.
I stood over her. "Why did you kill her?
Why did you kill her?
"
"Get out of here."
"Not likely. I'm going to see you fry, my big-busted angel." I headed for the telephone, keeping my eyes on her. I did not dare turn my back, even naked as she was.
She made a break, but it was not for me; it was for the door. How far she thought she could get in the buff I don't know.
I tripped her and fell on her. She was a big armful and ready to bite and claw, but I got a hammer lock on one arm and twisted it. "Be good," I warned her, "or I'll break it."
She lay still and I began to be aware that she was not only an armful but a very female armful. I ignored it. "Let me go, Eddie," she said in a tense whisper, "or I'll scream rape and get the cops in."
"Go right ahead, gorgeous," I told her. "The cops are just what I want, and quick."
"Eddie, Eddie, listen to reason—I didn't kill her, but
I know who did.
"
"Huh? Who?"
"I know . . . I do know—but he
couldn't
have. That's why I haven't said anything."
"Tell me."
She didn't answer at once; I twisted her arm. "Tell me!"
"
Oh!
It was Jack."
"Jack? Nonsense—I was watching him."
"I know. But he did it, just the same. I don't know how—but he did it."
I held her down, thinking. She watched my face. "Ed?"
"Huh?"
"If I punched the buzzer, wouldn't my fingerprint be on it?"
"Should be."
"Why don't you find out?"
It stonkered me. I thought I was right but she seemed quite willing to make the test. "Get up," I said. "On your knees and then on your feet. But don't try to get your arm free and don't try any tricks, or, so help me, I'll kick you in the belly."
She was docile enough and I moved us over to the phone, dialled it with one hand and managed to get to Spade Jones through the police exchange. "Spade? This is Eddie—Eddie Hill. Was there a fingerprint on the buzzer button?"
"Now I wondered when you would be getting around to thinking of that. There was."
"Whose?"
"The corpse's."
"Estelle's?"
"The same. And Estelle's on the egg timer. None on the knife—wiped clean. Lots from both girls around the room, and a few odd ones—old, probably."
"Uh . . . yes. . . . well, thanks."
"Not at all. Call me if you get any bright ideas, son."
I hung up the phone and turned to Hazel. I guess I had let go her arm when Spade told me the print was not hers, but I don't remember doing so. She was standing there, rubbing her arm and looking at me in a very odd way. "Well," I said, "you can twist my arm, or kick me anywhere you like. I was wrong. I'm sorry. I'll try to prove it to you."
She started to speak and then started to leak tears again. It finished up with her accepting my apology in the nicest way possible, smearing me with lipstick and tears. I loved it and I felt like a heel.
Presently I wiped her face with my handkerchief and said, "You put on a robe or something and sit on the bed and I'll sit on the couch. We've got to dope this out and I can think better with that lovely chassis of yours covered up."
She trotted obediently and I sat down. "You say Jack killed her, but you admit you don't know how he could have done it. Then why do you think he did?"
"The music."
"Huh?"
"The music he played for the show was
Valse Triste.
That's Estelle's music, for Estelle's act. My act, the regular twelve o'clock act, calls for
Bolero.
He must have known that Estelle was up there; he used the right music."
"Then you figure he must have been lying when he claimed Estelle never arranged with him to swap the shows. But it's a slim reason to hang a man—he might have gotten that record by accident."
"Could, but not likely. The records were kept in order and were the same ones for the same shows every night. Nobody touched them but him. He would fire a man for touching anything around the control box. However," she went on, "I knew it had to be him before I noticed the music. Only it couldn't be."
"Only it couldn't be. Go ahead."
"He hated her."
"Why?"
"She teased him."
"'She teased him.' Suppose she did. Lots of people get teased. She teased lots of people. She teased you. She teased me. So what?"
"It's not the same thing," she insisted. "Jack was afraid of the dark."
It was a nasty story. The lunk was afraid of total darkness, really afraid, the way some kids are. Hazel told me he would not go back of the building to get his parked car at night without a flashlight. But that would not have given away his weakness, nor the fact that he was ashamed of it—lots of people use flashlights freely, just to be sure of their footing. But he had fallen for Estelle and apparently made a lot of progress—had actually gotten into bed with her. It never came to anything because she had snapped out the lights. Estelle had told Hazel about it, gloating over the fact that she had found out about what she termed his cowardice "soon enough."
"She needled him after that," Hazel went on. "Nothing that anyone could tumble to, if they didn't know. But
he
knew. He was afraid of her, afraid to fire her for fear she would tell. He hated her—at the same time he wanted her and was jealous of her. There was one time in the dressing room. I was there—" He had come in while they were dressing, or undressing, and had picked a fight with Estelle over one of the customers. She told him to get out. When he did not do it, she snapped out the light. "He went out of there like a jack rabbit, falling over his feet." She stopped. "How about it, Eddie? Motive enough?"
"Motive enough," I agreed. "You've got me thinking he did it. Only he couldn't."
"'Only he couldn't.' That's the trouble."
I told her to get into bed and try to get some sleep—that I planned to sit right where I was till the pieces fitted. I was rewarded with another sight of the contours as she chucked the robe, then I helped myself to a good-night kiss. I don't think she slept; at least she did not snore.
I started pounding my brain. The fact that the stage was not dark when it
seemed
dark changed the whole picture and eliminated, I thought, everyone not familiar with the mechanics of the Mirror. It left only Hazel, Jack, the other barman, the two waiters—and Estelle herself. It was physically possible for an Unknown Stranger to have slipped upstairs, slid the shiv in her, ducked downstairs, but psychologically—no. I made a mental note to find out what other models had worked in the Mirror.
The other barman and the two waiters Spade had eliminated—all of them had been fully alibied by one or more customers.
I
had alibied Jack. Estelle—but it wasn't suicide. And Hazel.
If Estelle's fingerprint meant what it seemed, Hazel was out—not time enough to commit a murder, arrange a corpse, wipe a handle, and get downstairs to my side before Jack started the show.
But in that case nobody could have done it—except a hypothetical sex maniac who did not mind a spot of butchery in front of a window full of people. Nonsense!
Of course the fingerprint was not conclusive. Hazel
could
have pushed the button with a coin or a bobby pin, without destroying an old print or making a new one. I hated to admit it but she was not clear yet.
Again, if Estelle did not push the button, then it looked still more like an insider; an outsider would not know where to find the button nor have any reason to push it.
For that matter, why should Hazel push it? It had not given her an alibi—it didn't make sense.
Round and round and round till my head ached.
It was a long time later that I went over and tugged at the covers. "Hazel—"
"Yes, Eddie?"
"Who punched the buzzer in the
eleven
o'clock show?"
She considered. "That show is both of us. She did—she always took charge."
"Mmmm. . . . What other girls have worked in the Mirror?"
"Why, none. Estelle and I opened the show."
"Okay. Maybe I've got it. Let's call Spade Jones."
Spade assured me he would be only too happy to get out of a warm bed to play games with me and would I like a job waking the bugler, too? But he agreed to come to the Joy Club, with Joy in tow, and to fetch enough flat feet, firearms, and muscles to cope.
I was standing back of the bar in the Joy Club, with Hazel seated where she had been when she screamed and a cop from the Homicide Squad in my seat. Jack and Spade were at the end of the bar, where Spade could see.
"We will now show how a man can be two places at one time," I announced. "I am now Mr. Jack Joy. The time is shortly before midnight. Hazel has just left the dressing room and come downstairs. She stops off for a moment at the little girls room at the foot of the stairs, and thereby misses Jack, who is headed for those same stairs. He goes up and finds Estelle in the dressing room, peeled and ready for her act—probably."
I took a glance at Jack. His face was a taut mask, but he was a long way from breaking. "There was an argument—what about, I don't know, but it might have been over the trumpet boy she had swapped shows to meet. In any case, I am willing to bet that she stopped it by switching out the dressing room light to chase him out."
First blood. He flinched at that—his mask cracked. "He didn't stay out more than a few moments," I went on. "Probably he had a flashlight in his pocket—he's probably got one on him now—and that let him go back into that terrible, dark room, and switch on the light. Estelle was already on the stage, anointing herself with catsup, and almost ready to push the buzzer. She must have been about to do so, for she had started the egg timer. He grabbed the prop dagger and stabbed her, stabbed her dead."
I stopped. No blood from Jack this time. His mask was on firmly. "He arranges her in the pose—ten seconds for that; it was nothing but a sprawl—wipes the handle and ducks out. Ten seconds more to this spot. Or make it twenty. He asks me if the buzzer has sounded and I tell him No. He really had to know, for Estelle might have punched it before he got to her."
"Hearing the answer he wanted, he bustles around a bit like this—" I monkeyed with some glassware and picked up a bar spoon and pointed with it to the stage. "Note that the Mirror is lighted and empty—I've got the bypass on. Imagine it dark, with Estelle on the altar, a knife in her heart." I dropped the spoon down and, while their eyes were still on the Mirror, I brought metal spoon across the two binding posts which carried the two leads to the push button on the stage. The buzzer gave out with a loud
beep!
I broke the connection by lifting the spoon for a split second, and brought it down again for a second
beep!
"And that is how a man can—
Catch him, Spade!
"
Spade was at him before I yelled. The three cops had him helpless in no time. He was not armed; it had been sheer reflex—a break for freedom. But he was not giving up, even now. "You've got nothing on me. No evidence. Anybody could have jimmied those wires anywhere along the line."
"No, Jack," I contradicted. "I checked for that. Those wires run through the same steel conduit as the power wires, all the way from the control box to the stage. It was here or there, Jack. It couldn't be there; it had to be here."
He shut up. "I want to see my lawyer," was his only answer.
"You'll see your lawyer," Spade assured him jovially. "Tomorrow, or the next day. Right now you're going to go downtown and sit under some nice hot lights for a few hours."
"No, Lieutenant!" It was Hazel.
"Eh? And why not, Miss Dorn?"